[procaare] Sign on: Advocacy UNGASS Statement for Women and Girls

["Jodi Jacobson" <jjacobson@genderhealth.org>]

Sign on: Advocacy UNGASS Statement for Women and Girls
*************

Dear Friends,  
 
I am sending the statement below on behalf of and in solidarity with my colleagues at the International Women's Health Coalition.  I hope you will be able to sign this statement on behalf of women and girls.  It is pasted below, and also is available at  <http://www.withwomenworldwide.org/>.  
Signatures should go to Ellen Marshall, em@goodworksgroup.net, not to me!!!  

Best
always, Jodi

== From Ellen:
Email: em@goodworksgroup.net

Please let me know by Friday, April 7th if you would like to add your organization to With Women Worldwide (Ellen Marshall on behalf of the International Women's Health Coalition ?  <mailto:em@goodworksgroup.net>).    For more information and translations of the statement, please visit  <http://www.withwomenworldwide.org/>

Greetings all - 

In preparation for key 2006 deliberations on the global response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, women and youth colleagues around the world are working to make prevention, treatment and care strategies work for women and girls. 

2006 is a critical year to determine the international community's future response to the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. From May 31 to June 2, the United Nations (UN) will conduct a five-year review of the implementation of its 2001 Declaration of Commitment with governments and civil society. In August, the biennial International AIDS Conference (IAC) in Toronto will provide an opportunity to reshape dialogue and decisions with an even wider range of leaders. 

In preparation for the critical 2006 HIV/AIDS deliberations, a group of women advocates reflecting diverse substantive and geographic perspectives and decades of expertise in HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health, sexuality, gender, the experiences of women living with AIDS, and human rights convened in Bangkok. They developed "With Women Worldwide?A Compact to End HIV/AIDS" as a tool for use in 2006 and beyond (the compact is attached). We are working now to expand the number of colleague organizations that support the compact - and hope that you will join on.

The joint goal is to mobilize extensive support for the Compact agenda to ensure that it is incorporated into discussions and decisions that occur at the UN and the upcoming IAC. Longer term, we will work together to transform these recommendations into concrete results and real resource flows. Both are essential to protect the health and improve the lives of girls and women around the world and to drive an effective global response to HIV/AIDS.

Please let me know by Friday, March 31 if you would like to add your organization to With Women Worldwide (Ellen Marshall on behalf of the International Women's Health Coalition ?  <mailto:em@goodworksgroup.net>).    

For more information and translations of the statement, please visit  <http://www.withwomenworldwide.org/>

With Women Worldwide ? A Compact to End HIV/AIDS 

Sexual and reproductive rights are a pivotal neglected priority in HIV/AIDS policy, programming and resource allocation. Failure to protect the human rights of girls and women, including their right to health and their right to live free of sexual coercion and violence, fuels the pandemic. Universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and education, and protection of sexual and reproductive rights, are essential to ending it. 

It is widely acknowledged that rates of HIV infection are increasing in women in every region in the world, and that these rates are often higher for girls and women than for men. Women, especially young women and girls, are vulnerable because of denial and neglect of their rights, gender inequality, social, cultural and economic factors, pervasive violence, and biology.

Girls' and women's empowerment must be at the center of a multi-sectoral response to the global pandemic. Regarding sexual and reproductive rights and health in particular, we call on HIV/AIDS decision makers at all levels to:

1. Redefine "High Risk": Recognize that women, especially young women and girls, are at serious risk, and that all women have the right to have access to confidential voluntary counseling and testing (VCT), treatment, care and support as part of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services

2. Expand Decision-making: Ensure that women infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, and women's health and rights advocates, are full participants in decision making, especially at the highest levels, so that decisions reflect the realities and needs of women.

3. Exercise Leadership: Prioritize in words and concrete actions reducing the risk and the burden of HIV/AIDS for women and girls, through protection of their sexual and reproductive rights and health, including the promotion of policies and laws against discrimination and sexual violence.

4. Invest HIV-targeted Funds: Allocate and monitor the use of significant HIV/AIDS resources for health services and education that protect and empower women and girls, including:

* Comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services accessible to all women with capacity to deliver HIV/AIDS and other STI prevention, counseling, testing, care, and treatment (or referral) services; 

* Universal access to subsidized female condoms as well as male condoms, and development and dissemination of microbicides and other women-initiated, prevention technologies, and vaccines; 

* Comprehensive sexuality education that promotes sexual and reproductive rights, gender equality and skills development, as well as full and accurate information, for all children and youth in and out of school. 

5. Strengthen HIV/AIDS Programs: Protect all women's health and rights through HIV/AIDS programs: 


* Ensure women's access to confidential VCT, including support for the choice not to be tested; provide protection from violence, stigma, and discrimination that may result from disclosure of status. 

* Ensure equitable, sustained access to treatment for AIDS and opportunistic infections for all women and girls, appropriate to their age, health and nutritional status, with full protection of their human rights including their sexual and reproductive rights; increase research on and development of appropriate treatment for various ages; and track access to treatment by age, sex, and continuity of care; 

* Increase and utilize funds earmarked for care and support to reduce women's disproportionate burden of care; 

* Provide support for women's economic empowerment in order to reduce their vulnerability. 

The 2006 review of the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS is a key opportunity for the international community to incorporate this action agenda for women and girls as we work to achieve the goal of universal access to prevention, treatment and care.

(IN PROGRESS) Supporting organizations: Aahung (Pakistan); ABIA (Brazil); ActionAid International; Action Canada for Population and Development (ACPD); ACT-UP DRASE HELLAS (Greece); Advocates for Youth; Alaturi de Voi (Close to You) Foundation (Romania); American Institute for Health Research; African Women's Development Fund; Aid for AIDS; AIDS Treatment Activists Coalition; AIDOS (Italy); ALUD Tucumán (Argentina); amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research; Asian Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW); Asociación Argentina de Educadoras es Sexuales; Asociación Argentina de Sexualidad Humana (AASH); Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID); Asociación Mujeres Meretrices de la Republica Argentina (AMMAR); Area de Estudios de Género de FLACSO (Chile); Breakthrough: Building Human Rights Culture; Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network; Cátedra Sociología de la Salud, FCS, UBA (Argentina); Catholics for a Free Choice; Center for Women's Global Leadership; Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE); Central and Eastern European Women's Network for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (ASTRA); Choice for Youth and Sexuality (Netherlands); Citizen Action Against AIDS (ACCSI, Venezuela); CLADEM (Regional Network); Charities Aid Foundation, Russia Representative Office (CAF, Russia); The Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies; Community Education Group; Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP); CREA; Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN); EAWM (Austria); Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights; Encuentro de Ong's con Trabajo en VIH/Sida de Córdoba (Argentina); Family Care International (FCI); F.A.P. VIH Positivo (Argentina); Federation for Women and Family Planning (Poland); Foundation for Integrative AIDS Research (FIAR, USA); Foundation for Study and Investigation on Women FEIM (Argentina); Fundación Buenos Aires Sida (FBAS); Fundación Crisanto(Argentina); Fundación Descida-Prevención y Asistencia Médico-Psicológica y Legal en VIH/Sida (Argentina); Fundación Habitar (Argentina); Fundación Zöe Centro (Argentina); Gestos (Brazil); Girls' Power Initiative (Nigeria); Global Harmony (India); Global AIDS Alliance; Gram Bharati Samiti (GBS, India); Health for All (Russia); Health Global Access Project (Health GAP, USA); Homosexual Argentinean Community (CHA); Housing Works; ICASO; IGLHRC; Intercambios Asociación Civil (Argentina); International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI); International AIDS Women's Caucus (IAWC); International Community of Women Living with AIDS (ICW); International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA); International Women's Health Coalition; Intilla Asociación Civil (Argentina); Ipas; Isis Internacional--Chile; Isis International--Manila; John Mordaunt Trust (UK); JOICP (Japan); LACCASO; Latin America and Caribbean Women's Health Network; Margaret Sanger Center International; Mujer y Salud en Uruguay; National Council of Jewish Women (US); The Naz Foundation (India) Trust; Network Women in Development Europe (WIDE); Nexo A.C. (Argentina); Open Society Institute; Organización Familiares Enfrentando al Sida (O.F.E.S., Argentina); ONG Internares (Argentina); Parliamentarians for Women's Health Botswana); PATH; Population Institute; Positive Women of Hope Organization (Cambodia); Red Argentina de Mujeres Viviendo con VIH-sida (Argentina); REDLA+; REPEM (Regional Network); Rutgers Nisso Groep (Netherlands); SANGRAM (India); Servicios Integrales para la Mujer-SI Mujer (Nicaragua); Shen Yang Ai Zhi Yuan Zhu Center for Health and Education (China); Shirkat Gah Women's Resource Centre (Pakistan); S.Se.R.en el Sur (Argentina); The Swedish Association for Sex Education (RFSU); Thai Women & HIV/AIDS Task Force; United Nations Foundation; Venezuelan Network of Positive People (RVG+); The Well Project; WISH (Women's Initiative to Stop HIV)-NY of the Legal Action Center; Woodhull Freedom Foundation; Women for Women's Human Rights - New Ways (Turkey); Women's Support Group (Sri Lanka); World AIDS Campaign; World Population Foundation; World YWCA; Youth Coalition (global).